


The French Valentine

by rainygalaxynerd



Category: My Bloody Valentine (2009), Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mark of Cain, Season Ten, TFW movienight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 17:59:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7767688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainygalaxynerd/pseuds/rainygalaxynerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never let me watch horror movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The French Valentine

Sam entered the bunker, arms full of bags of groceries.  
“Dean, hey, I’m back.” He went to the kitchen to unpack, painfully aware that Dean was nowhere to be seen, hiding in his room again; nose buried deep in the old books. Sam finished up and went down the hall, knocking on Dean’s door.  
“What?” Dean’s voice was on edge. Sam pushed the door open to find him sitting on the floor holding the usual dusty lorebook. The smell of stale whiskey and days’ old sweat hit him like a solid brick wall. He forced his way in, throwing a DVD into Dean’s lap.  
“Put that book away, you know it by heart now anyway. We’re watching a movie. Cas is coming too.”

Dean carefully looked at the cover.  
“My bloody Valentine? A fucking remake?”  
“Remake, what do you mean? The guy at the store said it was the most scary horror movie he had, I figured you’d be thrilled.”  
“Oh man, what an amateur,” Dean huffed. “The original movie was from 1981 starring Lori Hallier. Who’s playing Sarah in this? Jaimie King? Never heard of her before.” Dean tossed the box back to Sam, who let out a defeated sigh.  
“Fine whatever. Me and Cas are gonna watch it, and you can just sit here and pout.” He turned and walked away.  
“Hey Sam?” Dean asked as Sam was ready to slam the door behind him. “Did you get licorice?”  
“Yeah, freak.”  
“I’m in. Give me half an hour, I’ll just take a shower.”

Cas and Sam were already lounging when Dean showed up. The table half gone beneath heaps of candy, beer and popcorn. Dean let himself fall down between his brother and his friend. Sam pressed play and the movie began. At first it was a bunch of news reports on a mine cave-in. Some of the pictures of the fictional people involved made Sam scrunch his face.  
“Was that …?” Cas exclaimed, his gravelly voice trailing off as he turned to look at Dean. Dean looked from one to the other, chewing on a piece of candy.  
“What?”  
“Nothing,” Cas amended, snapping his attention back to the television. Sam had a sinking feeling in his gut.

The psycho pickax serial killer woke up from his coma and the massacre of mutilated bodies he had left behind in the hospital was on display. The three men in the bunker had all seen enough real life crime scenes that a mess of fake blood smeared over painted wax body parts didn’t get to them at all. Slasher movies always got something wrong. There would always be tell tales in the way the blood spatter wouldn’t quite fit the patterns it should, how no matter how hard the movies tried, there was just never enough other goo and hardly enough blood to make it realistic. As the camera continued to roll across dead, hacked to pieces bodies, they all had to admit that this time it looked pretty accurate.

The TV showed a bunch of young people waiting outside a mine, talking about some girl and her loser boyfriend. When the characters arrived in a banged-up jeep, even Dean couldn’t deny the similarity between himself and the apparent protagonist.  
“Handsome devil, that one,” he muttered, his eyes wide. All three of them stared at the screen as the characters entered the mine, Dean’s clone hanging back. Dean recognized the expression of wrecking guilt and a haunting past all too well, but he said nothing. Didn’t let the others know how exposed he felt.  
“This is really freaky,” Sam said, as the killings inside the mine began.  
“They say everybody has at least one doppelganger somewhere,” Dean mumbled, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“That was the worst special effects ever,” Dean commented as a girl’s head was split in half by a shovel, slowly sliding off of it. “The original movie was better than this.” Sam could see him holding his arm, squeezing it tighter and rubbing the mark every time another bloodcurdling scream sounded and fake blood splattered against the TV screen. The time stamp for the setting changed, and scene after scene unfolded, showing Dean’s guilt ridden, troubled, scared face somehow staring at them through the screen. Sam decided to stop the film but no matter how he angled the remote or how hard he pressed the buttons, nothing happened. He moved to turn off the TV, but Dean stopped him.  
“Don’t Sam. The plot is a little different from the old movie. There’s some variations I can’t get the hang of. I want to see it.” Unconsciously he still held his arm. Sam let it go, his heart thudding too loudly in his chest, his attention equally divided between his brother and the TV.

Dean laughed as the furious and still naked Irene chased her lover across the parking lot, gun in hand.  
“That’s right, shoot that son of a b.. dammit! - Ha, nice thro.. oh. Should’ve seen that coming.”  
Cas groaned as Irene ran back into her motel room.  
“Don’t hide under the bed, I thought you had balls,” Dean muttered, throwing his hands in the air. Despite the wrongness of it all, none of them could help laughing at the outrageously bizarre “midget murder”. They knew better than to cheer for Irene to survive. She had tried to hide under a bed, for crying out loud.

“I don’t get it. That Tom-guy is just next door, why the hell doesn’t he do something?” Sam said, not liking how Dean was touching his arm again.  
“I guess he took sleeping pills, because he is such a delicate fragile fucking flower,” Dean grumbles. He couldn’t explain how aggravating it was to him, to see his doppelganger fighting the demons of his past and losing the battle. Couldn’t explain how much it got to him, to see Tom’s hands shaking, comparing these moments of vulnerability to his own increasingly frequent meltdowns.

Dean knew who the miner would turn out to be. He knew because he had seen the old movie two or three times, locked up in crappy motel rooms, watching his little brother’s even breaths during the commercial breaks. He knew T.J. or Tom, as the character was called in the remake, was just a lucky coward that would manage to survive and get the girl. Still, it was eerie that watching the movie was almost like looking into a mirror sometimes. There was no real connection between him and Tom. Dean might not be admirable in many ways, he might have fucked up more times than he legitimately would care to count, but he had never tried to run from his responsibilities. Running away had been Sammy’s thing.

The killings continued. Dean couldn’t help smile at the fact that the girl who would ultimately survive was dressed in a plaid shirt. She might not be that bad-ass but at least she dressed hunter-style. She was pretty and her acting better than okay. It was weird seeing himself talking to her, pining after her on the screen, while he was also sitting in the couch. Dean had to remind himself again that there was no connection between him and Tom Hanniger. They just happened to look a lot alike.

As the miner played mouse and cat at the Palmer residence, Dean felt the Mark answer to the violence on the screen. He tried to silence its mute calling, constantly egging him to explode. It wanted him to smash the television, take a bat to Sam’s head for bringing home this crap movie, and just continue to kill, KILL, **KILL**. He gripped his arm tightly and hummed “Nothing Else Matters” to silence the urges, still slightly considering knocking over the TV. But part of him knew that once he willingly gave in to the mark, gave in to just one seemingly innocent compulsion, he would never be able to stop.

At least the surreal experience was nearing its end. It was time for the final showdown in the mine, time for Axel to show his true colors. Only that wasn’t what happened. Dean watched in horror, as he realized Tom was the miner. The beast lived inside _him_. _He_ killed all those people and he didn’t even know. Dean felt his head spinning as he fought to keep his breathing calm. Sam held him up, padded his back, told him to breathe slowly, breathe with him. Acted as if Dean was one of the people they saved, panicking over one monster or another. _He_ was the monster. Sam’s breathing wasn’t too good either and Dean felt dizziness overtake him. What if he surrendered to the darkness lurking at the edge of his vision, what if he kept hyperventilating and fainted. What if he woke up again to find Sam and Cas dead by his hands?

Somewhere in the back of his head, his father was yelling at him to get his act together. That people depended on him, the world depended on him, that Sam needed him.  
“Slow your breath, Dean, come on. Please.” Sam hugged him tightly. Cas put two fingers to his forehead and more than anything that broke Dean out of his terrified stupor.  
“Don’t, Cas. Don’t you fucking use any of your mojo on this. I’ll handle it.” Dean could feel his breath steadying until his eyes fell on the television. Until he saw himself survive against all odds, ever the monster. Suddenly Dean was on his knees, sobbing.

xoxox

Sam went back to the video store the next day. Somehow he didn’t really expect it to be there. It was, however.  
“You sold me this yesterday,” he started out, speaking in a low menacing voice to the clerk. He grabbed the kid’s collar, ignoring the security cameras pointing at them. He threw the printout from his search on IMDB at the counter. “This film,” Sam continued, “doesn’t exist.This actor - Jensen Ackles - doesn’t live in this fucking world” The clerk struggled weakly against his hold, stuttering unintelligibly. “You knew I’d smell angel when I saw that name, didn’t you?” The clerk grasped a DVD lying under the counter and waved it in front of Sam. He grabbed it, looked it over. It was blank. He looked curiously at the clerk.  
“Why are you still here?” Wordlessly the clerk pointed at Sam’s fist around his collar.

Sam released the clerk and hurried home to put the DVD in. A typical porn movie began and suddenly Gabriel’s soulful eyes looked at Sam from the screen. He was wearing his usual smirk. This time it didn’t reach his eyes, though.  
“You boys thought you were in deep with the Apocalypse? This time we’re all screwed for real. I’d tell you to control him, but you won’t be able to. Not much longer.”


End file.
